A packed room at St. Brigid’s Centre for the Arts was politically charged Sunday as Palestinian Canadian artist Rehab Nazzal spoke about her controversial city hall art exhibit.

More people than there were chairs crowded in to listen to a Q&A with Nazzal, presented by the City of Ottawa Public Art Program and moderated by Diana Nemiroff, the former director of the Carleton University Art Gallery.

The art exhibit, titled “Invisible,” includes images of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons, among other art pieces that portray the West Bank and Gaza.

It garnered international attention last week when Israel’s ambassador to Canada, Rafael Barak, publicly condemned the exhibit.

Barak said the exhibit glorifies terrorism and asked Mayor Jim Watson to have it prematurely removed from the Karsh-Masson Art Gallery, located in Ottawa City Hall.

This condemnation provoked a similarly strong-worded response from the Palestinian General Delegation in Ottawa, which accused the ambassador of censorship and an assault on free speech.

The city’s response was to post a disclaimer outside the exhibit and to reference the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In a letter to the Jewish Federation of Ottawa on May 23, Watson said the city has never shut down an art exhibit and that cancelling it ahead of June 22, when it is set to close, would likely violate freedom of expression rights.

Asked Sunday if she would comment on the controversy caused by the ambassador’s comments, Nazzal said, “It’s wrong.”

“It’s none of their business,” she said, adding the cultural realm should stay separate from government. “I felt they were extending the occupation into Canada.”

Nazzal said the city was right to put up a disclaimer, but questioned the decision of the Israeli ambassador to depart from diplomacy at a federal level and wade into municipal affairs and the cultural sphere.

“I was really upset of any pressure on the city to interfere in the selection of art,” she said. “We don’t want to go there.”

Nemiroff said she doubted this exhibit would’ve caused the same level of controversy had it been shown outside of city property, for example at the SAW gallery.

“The proximity of government and art creates a tension,” she said, adding she hopes a “chill” won’t descend upon artists who wish to deal with challenging subject matter, whether publicly funded or not.

When opened up to the audience, the discussion occasionally became heated.

One man pushed Nazzal to explain the identity of a person whose face is on the exhibit’s brochure. She explained that all the faces in her work are traces, and that her art endeavours to describe the Palestinian experience as it applies to all Palestinians.

Still, the man persisted in questioning why she would not discuss the person’s identity, and why she would choose to put his likeness on a brochure “that also has the City of Ottawa logo,” he said.

“I am an artist,” said Nazzal. “I have the right to express what I want.”

When Nemiroff eventually asked that the man step aside so someone else could ask a question, another audience member pointed his finger at her, accusing her of being too rigid about the Q& A format. “Where’s the conversation?” he said.

The same man had himself been heckled for a lengthy comparison between apartheid in South Africa and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that did not end in a question for the artist.

Though the exhibit caused controversy in Ottawa, Nazzal said she plans to show it elsewhere, including at venues in the Middle East. She said the publicity garnered by the ambassador’s criticisms has led to international phone calls from galleries interested in showing her work.

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